Ques on seed times

I always enter the time I think I'll do.

It's not the Olympics! If you're Sandbagging so you can scoop a gong or something then, it's a bit shallow. If it's just to get in all your events and enjoy yourelf then I think it's fine. I understand it can slow the meet but really, if the meet is that huge, then it's an all day thing anyhow! I usually go with my previous best time, or the previous year's time.

Well, 'in trouble' is such a subjective term. In my circle of friends, sandbagging, aka 'pulling a fortress', will subject you to endless ridicule and scorn. Entering an NT when you have never swam that event is OK. I still try to put an estimated time down. I put my best time in that course for the last 12 months. If I don't have a time for that event, I convert a time from a different course if I do have it. Example, I converted my best SCY 100 Free to LCM for my LCM National 100 Free seed time. Now there are people, who will choose to swim back to back events and will, even tho they are very fast swimmers, put an NT entry time for the first event to try and gain as much recovery time as possible. Some of them even try to justify this by indicating that the meet director OKed this questionable behavoir. Paul

You won't get in trouble, but it's poor form because you should be swimming in faster heats. Even a rough estimate of your time is better than entering with NT.

What happens if you put NT and then swim really fast? You may feel sort of silly. You'll be in the slowest heat, along with some true beginners and/or some people 4x your age. In the 100, you could lap someone. Given what you have posted about your practice times, I would recommend that you see whether or not the meet director can change your NTs to some seed times based on those practice times. If they can seed you properly, you and the people in that slowest heat will all have more fun and swim better.

What happens if you put NT and then swim really fast? My first meet is in a couple of weeks, and when I had to register, I had no idea how fast (or slow) I was going to swim my events. I'm registered for the 50 and 100 BR, and I've been moving pretty quick as of late. Can you get in trouble for that?

What happens if you put NT and then swim really fast? My college roommate did that in his first master's meet. He was a good college swimmer, took a couple of years off, and started competing masters around age 25. He trained a bit, but really had no idea how fast he would go, so entered with NT. He ended up in heats with 70 to 90 year old swimmers who he beat by quite a bit. Some of the other folks in his heats were a little ticked off at him. My advice would be to swim your event all out in practice before registering for a meet to at least get a ball park idea of what seed time to use.

Masters swimming _does_ have a large standard deviation on seed times. There are plenty of people who _are_ trying to put good seed times, but are then off. Often, people tend to underestimate themselves. Other times, you get people who were training really well when the entry was due, and then work exploded, or they were sent away on business, or any of the other things happened that we call "life", and they couldn't get in the pool as much. For me, all I ask is that people make an honest effort. When you watch the heats going off, you can quickly tell which people are "in the mix", and which people were waaaay off, in one way or another. I have an online entries system that we use for some NE championship meets. I've been dabbling with tying it into some swimming databases that we have historical times in. So you'd sign up for the meet, and perhaps we could suggest seed times for you, or if your seed times are waaay off from previous performances, give you a warning and encouragement to fix. Yes, I know that there are all of the cases of "but I'm 6 months pregnant this year", or "I'm rehabbing from shoulder surgery", etc. All I ask is an honest effort on good seed times. If you need to adjust for these "real life" reasons, you're an adult now... you can do it. :-) -Rick

It's masters--it shouldn't matter and people that make a big deal about it suck. I, like others, usually sandbag a little (like a 1-2 seconds on a 100-200 and 3-4 seconds on a 500) in case I have a stroke or don't train as much as I thought I was going to. I agree with Kurt (and Chowmi). Most people seem to put times in that are slightly slower to compensate for RL or because they're unrested or cranky and sore or whatever. Not a big deal. Probably not more than Rick's 10% permissible deviation standard. And, aside from meet directors like Rick who have a vested interest in running an efficient meet, many people who complain about sandbagging or NTs (like the 5 pack freestylers) have the luxury of not struggling with the order of events every meet or worrying about adequate rest. By contrast, I recall that, after correctly seeding myself first in the 50 back at our last zones meet, I was beaten by someone who swam almost 3 seconds faster than her seed time. Who cares? She's an awesome swimmer. I also think it is somewhat inaccurate to say people are at meets to "race." True, but many people are just swimming against themselves and trying to improve on their own times. Often, they don't care what other swimmers are doing, particularly if they're not in their age group. And, George, it is perfectly possible to swim fast with an NT. At my meet last weekend, the meet director lost my 50 fly entry (I was seeded at the exact time I did at the beginning of the season last year), and I had to swim in an NT heat. Not my choice, but it's not the end of the world.

With all due respect to the meet directors, I don't think making the most of a meet you may pay well over $500 to attend by adding a second to a time is really that heinous. At least definitely not at my level. :2cents: I don't care about 1 second. If everyone were within 1 second, we'd be great! I care about 10 seconds in a 100. If you're that far off in a 100 free, then you need to work on your seed times. I happen to run a meet that lots of people seem to want to come to. If I can get better seed times, I can squeeze more people into the meet. More people for you to socialize with on deck. More people for you to drink with after the meet. I don't like telling people that my meet is full. -Rick